Rookie making sudden impact

Saturday

Mar 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - Andrew Clark found a great way to impress his new coach.

Scott Linesburgh

STOCKTON - Andrew Clark found a great way to impress his new coach.

Just three games into his professional career, Clark had a hat trick and will try to build on the achievement when the Thunder hosts the Idaho Steelheads at 7:30 p.m. today in the regular-season finale at Stockton Arena.

Both teams are locked into playoff positions. Idaho is the third seed and No. 4 Stockton has home-ice advantage in the first round against Las Vegas, which begins Friday. Thunder coach Matt Thomas said he has plenty of decisions to make regarding his postseason roster, and this is a good time for a young player to make a good impression.

Fresh out of college, Clark scored his first pro goal in a 4-1 win against San Francisco on March 23 and kept going, getting one in each of the three periods.

"I just wanted to come in and play hard and play my game, and to get rewarded like that is pretty great," Clark said. "Even if I didn't get the hat trick, you'd like to think I've done enough things to help out and make an impression. But it certainly doesn't hurt."

Thomas said Clark, a 24-year-old center, has definitely done enough to get noticed.

"He's a guy that can score goals, but the thing that impresses me more is that he's a guy who can play in other situations," Thomas said. "He's good in the faceoff circle, he's a good penalty killer, he can play on the power play. He can be a go-to guy in a lot of different situations."

It's been a quick transition for Clark. Just a few weeks ago, he was finishing up his collegiate season at Acadia University, located in the uniquely named town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

"We called it Wolf-Vegas," he said. 'It's got like 6,000 people, but 4,000 are university people. It's got a great atmosphere."

He had 131 points in 111 games with the Axemen. Thomas was looking for a forward, and signed Clark on March 17. Clark didn't have a point in his first two games, but scored with 30 seconds left in the first period against the Bulls on a line with Garet Hunt and Matt Bergland. He had a power-play goal in the second, and to start the third he replaced a slightly injured Eric Hunter on a line with Ryan Hayes and Shawn Weller.

He earned his hat trick 46 seconds into the period.

"As we were walking out (of the locker room) I said, 'You might as well get the third one right here.' And like 40 seconds later, he had the hat trick," Hayes said. "It's awesome he got his first one and third one in the same night."

Thomas said although today's game doesn't mean anything in the standings and he is likely to move around his lines to look at different combinations, he also wants to go into the playoffs with a strong performance. Stockton has won three in a row.

"You always want to go into the playoffs on a winning note, and there will also be a lot of focus on doing some of the things we want to implement in our first-round series," Thomas said. "We just want to continue to play strong hockey."